It was one of Microsoft’s oldest, most loved applications, and as of early 2009 it appeared to be dead meat. I speak of Microsoft Flight Simulator, which by Microsoft’s math launched 28 years ago. (I date its origins to an earlier non-Microsoft version called SubLOGIC Flight Simulator and therefore consider it to be thirty years old.)

Anyhow, among the news at the Gamescom conference in Cologne, Germany is that reports of Flight Simulator’s death turned out to be premature. Microsoft’s bringing it back under the name Microsoft Flight. So far, it’s only teasing us about the details, but it seems to be aiming for a wider audience of non-flightsim geeks, and adding social features.

Here’s the preview:

I was never a serious Flight Simulator enthusiast, but this development still warms the cockles of my heart. A Microsoft exec I spoke with today didn’t spill any secrets about the new version–but he did say it’ll be a rebooting a la JJ Abrams’ Star Trek. How many technology products from the early 1980s are available in any form whatsoever?

2 Comments For This Post

Looks interesting. The folks at X-Plane have advanced their sim considerably, especially in the time that FS has been gone. Some competition will be good – although perhaps FS will go more for mass market, while X-Plane accentuates all its geeky goodness.